


Already Gone

by arthurpendragonz



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 14:32:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthurpendragonz/pseuds/arthurpendragonz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon and Elena give in to their feelings for each other and decide to leave Mystic Falls. Elena leaves Stefan a letter but can she really walk away. My take on what could happen after S3E09. A/U.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Already Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a little one shot I've had on my laptop for AGES that I thought I'd share :) It's a songfic to Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone :) hope you enjoy it...

Elena left the letter on the table next to the front door of the boarding house. She hated to do this but she couldn't see any other way. Things had changed irrevocably and there was no way she could pretend the last few months had never happened.

It was time to stop living the lie she had created when she had first realised the depth of her feelings for the other Salvatore brother. She sighed in wonder. Looking back she couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it happened. She used to think only Hollywood movies had love stories that started with hate but she was wrong.

A year ago if someone had told her she'd fall in love with Damon Salvatore she would have laughed and told them to go and get their crystal ball fixed. When she had first met him he was irritating, stubborn, arrogant, self righteous and damn right infuriating. He still was now, but he was also caring, selfless, protective, romantic and kind. It amazed her how she could have been so blind in the beginning.

She shook her head and turned around taking in the sight of the boarding house one last time. She didn't know when she'd be back or even if she'd be back again. It felt like home to her now.

She heard Damon walking down the stairs with his suitcase in hand smiling at her almost grimly.

“Are you sure about this? I know we've gotten closer over the last few months but I don't want you to rush into anything and regret it later. I couldn't stand being with you only to lose you again if you change your mind.” His voice broke on the last few words as he reached up to caress Elena's cheek.

She shook her head. “I've made my choice, Damon. To be honest there never really was a choice from the moment I met you.” She smiled. “I fought you, fought us, but I was never going to win. I can't say it will be easy, we'll fight and we'll argue and we'll generally want to kill each other, but no matter what happens we'll never walk away from each other because what we have is real. I love you, Damon. It was you, it is you and it will always be you.” She snaked her hand around his neck and pulled him down into a bruising kiss reveling in the rightness of the feeling of his lips against hers. He pulled back to let her breathe, resting his forehead against hers and whispering gently.

“I'll never get tired of hearing you say you love me. I don't know what I did to deserve you but I'm sure as hell never going to walk away from this feeling I have when I'm with you. You make me feel and every single second of pain has been worth it just to hear you say you love me back.” He smiled genuinely, happiness radiating from his features.

She still loved Stefan, of course she did, but she no longer loved him enough. When he had taken off with Klaus she thought her world would end, that she'd be devastated and broken beyond repair. She wasn't, not even close.

No, when Damon had almost died that's when she had felt her world collapsing. That's when she realised that there was more to their understanding than she would like to acknowledge but she wasn't ready to admit it. Instead she had focused on getting Stefan back. If he came back to her everything would be the way it was again. She could forget her feelings for Damon, bury them and resume her relationship with Stefan.

Only, it never happens the way she plans it to.

It starts off small at first. They never discuss the kiss. She refuses and he accepts that it was a kiss of goodbye, nothing more. She doesn't correct his assumption. They throw themselves into the search for Stefan in an attempt to distance themselves from the undeniable pull that's grown stronger since that death bed confession.

It works for a while but in true Mystic Falls fashion nothing ever works out right for long. Soon the lingering looks turn into looks of burning longing and desire. Her eyes become alight with barely constrained need. His bore holes into her very soul with the depths of his love.

They fight it, god, how they fight it. He fights it out of loyalty and respect for his missing brother. How can he steal his brothers girlfriend whilst he's off paying for a cure Damon had no right to obtain? She fights it out of loyalty and respect too. She will not betray Stefan's trust no matter how much her feelings have changed and she will not become the person she swore never to imitate. Katherine. She would not become her.

In the end they fail. Elena fails because everything's too damn hard, the world is against her and she's too tired to fight her love for him as well. Damon fails because he's never been able to deny her. Never been able to walk away and move on. He doesn't want to and he physically can't, leave her.

They give in the night she realises that things will never go back to the way they were before. They can't. She watches as the humanity dims in Stefan's eyes, knows she'll never watch it return and accepts she was never really strong enough to fight for him when her heart wasn't fully in it to begin with.

It was never really Stefan.

When Damon lifts her from that hospital bed and looks at her with such pain and love she knows that she was fighting a battle her heart never wanted to win. She can tell he thinks it's his fault that she's there. Elena knows he always blames himself for the bad things that happen to her, after all everyone else blames him too.

She thinks he's never been more wrong. If it wasn't for him she would have given up the second she knew Klaus was after her. She had wanted too. She couldn't stand the idea of everyone else dying just so she could live. Did they not understand that she couldn't possibly face life without the ones she loved?

He made her fight. Forced her to live because he couldn't stand the idea of her giving up and giving in. Elena realised in those moments when he rescued her; from Rose & Trevor, from Elijah, from Klaus, that he would always be there to help her, to save her, even when she pushed him away, yelled at him and fought him, he would never give up on her. So she would never give up on him.

When Stefan told her Damon was dying she couldn't breathe, couldn't think. Elena put up no resistance, not really, when he said he would go to Klaus to get the cure. She could not lose him. She didn't care that it was selfish, didn't care that he wasn't really hers to lose. Elena would sacrifice every single thing she loved as long as she could keep him in her life.

Because she loved him. Elena Gilbert loved Damon Salvatore and it had taken him nearly dying, Stefan nearly killing her and Klaus breaking her whole world apart for her to admit it.

When she had finally admitted it to herself it was like her world had suddenly realigned in to patterns she could make sense of.

Of course she loved him. How could she not? They were Damon and Elena. They had always been Damon and Elena. There was no other who could have been it for either of them. She was stupid and selfish when she denied him what was his all along. Her heart.

That's why she'd asked him to leave with her. She couldn't tell Stefan that she would never be his again. When Mikael had killed Klaus she felt relief only at his death. She was happy that Stefan was free of Klaus's compulsion but she was terrified of going back to being with him.

She hadn't told him about the hours she had spent holed up in Damon's room. Hadn't mentioned the fact that she loved his brother or that as soon as she could she'd be gone from Mystic Falls faster than a vampires blur.

No, she'd been a coward and wrote it all down in a letter. He'd been on the bunny diet for a month now. If he chose to go back to hunting humans then Elena could no longer blame herself. In staying with Stefan she was becoming the thing she swore she never would. In choosing Stefan she had become Katherine because she loved Damon as well. She wasn't strong enough to love him and let him go so she would have spent eternity in the middle of a love triangle that would eventually destroy them all.

By choosing Damon she had remained Elena. Her friends and family would never understand her choice and how could she expect them to when she didn't even understand it herself. She simply knew that he was it for her. She wouldn't waste another second of her life making the choices everyone else wanted her to make.

Elena grabbed Damon's hand and squeezed it in reassurance. “You ready?” She asked calmly.

“Well, I'll have to cancel all my booty calls and tell my groupies it's over. I don't think they'll take too kindly to being ousted in favour of my new girlfriend.” He smirked. She smacked his arm and glared.

“Kidding, 'Lena.” He smiled. “Did I mention you are so damn hot when you're jealous? Seriously, I think we may need to christen my bed one last time before we go. I don't know how much longer I can be around you and not have you.” He leaned in to kiss her again, smirking as she blushed. “Not helping Elena. I can hear your heartbeat trying to jump out of your chest.” He growled low in his throat causing Elena to shiver. God, that noise did things to her body that should be illegal.

“I hope you can drive fast then because I fully intend on taking you up on that offer once we reach Georgia.” She winked and bit his lip backing away in amusement.

“Didn't anyone ever tell you not to tease a vampire?” Damon almost moaned in anticipation. “How do you expect me to sit for hours like this?” He motioned towards the very obvious bulge in his trousers. “You are so evil.”

“I know and you love me so much more because of it. You know I have an outfit that I really think you love that would definitely ease your little problem. Too bad we aren't in Georgia yet.” She smirked and wiggled her hips sexily in his direction.

His eyes bulged and his face took on a predatory gaze, lust darkening his eyes. “Get. In. The car. Now.” He growled.

She turned around and started walking towards the door with deliberate slowness, sashaying her hips as she walked.

She felt a tiny breeze before she was lifted off her feet and over his shoulder, sped out the door and deposited in the front passenger seat of his Camaro. She giggled as he shoved his suitcase into the boot, blurred into the drivers seat and gunned the engine, screeching down the driveway and out of Mystic Falls.

“You are not leaving that bedroom for at least a day.” He told her, pushing the car as fast as it would go.

“Don't worry I was planning to let you handcuff me to the bed anyway.” She grinned as his jaw dropped momentarily stunned at her revelation.

“You, Elena Gilbert, are the biggest minx I have ever met. How the hell I thought you were innocent I'll never know.”

“What can I say. You make me want to rip my clothes off and jump you whenever you enter a room. I just get so worked up whenever you're near me. I want you.” She whispered.

Damon swallowed audibly then narrowed his eyes. “I am going to make you scream when we get to Georgia.”

“Good.” She smirked casually resting her hand on his leg and trailing her fingers up and down with exaggerated slowness.

“Your going to be the death of me.” Damon shook his head clenching his jaw in barely restrained desire.

“You love me for it really.” She smiled.

“I do.” He said capturing her gaze with his and pouring every ounce of love he felt for her in to it. “I love you, Elena, and I always will.”

Elena took in a shaky breath momentarily stunned by the depth of his emotions for her before replying. “I love you too, Damon.”

She reached over to grasp his hand in hers. “And I'll never stop.”

 

**&**&**&**&**&**

Stefan,

By the time you read this, I'll already be gone. I'm sorry but I couldn't pretend any longer. I can't face telling you this, so I'm taking the coward's way out and writing this to you in a letter.

Remember all the things we wanted? How everyday we talked about the future, our future. How we'd travel the world and live, truly live, once all the craziness had ended. Now all those memories, they're haunted with the pain of loss and death. As I'm writing this now it feels as if we were always meant to say goodbye. It never would've worked out right and deep down I think you know that too.

I don't think we were ever meant for do or die. I didn't want us to burn out like this and I didn't want to hurt you but I can't seem to stop. Carrying this on wouldn't be fair to either of us. I've changed. You've changed. We've changed, Stefan. I want you to know that you couldn't have loved me better but I want you to move on so this is my goodbye.

Please don't blame yourself, this is my fault. I should have been honest with you from the moment I realised we were never meant to be. We forced us when we knew we were falling apart beyond repair and I'm sorry that I wasn't brave enough to walk away when we both know I should have.

Looking at you makes it harder but I know that you will find another and I hope she'll never make you want to cry. We started with a perfect kiss then we could feel the poison set in. It was epic but then the sun came up and reality set in. Perfect couldn't keep our love alive.

You know that I love you and I hope that you love me enough to let me go. You can't make it feel right when you know that it's wrong, Stefan. One of us has to go because we can't keep pretending anymore. We're lying to each other and we're lying to ourselves.

You love Katherine and it will always be Katherine for you. I know you loved me too, but it was never enough. I don't hate you for loving her. I can't, but if we'd have both been honest from the beginning things may have worked out differently.

I don't blame you and I won't force us when we both know it can't work. Damon is coming with me. I think I love him, Stefan. No, I do love him and I won't hurt him any longer by denying the truth.

You put me back together again after my parents died and I want to thank you for that. Without you I never would have survived the pain of losing them both. I know it's not what you want to hear but Damon makes me feel alive again. He makes me better, Stefan, and if you're honest with yourself you'll see that Katherine does the same for you too.

I'll understand if you hate us for leaving you like this but it was the only way. I didn't want you to fight. We've all experienced enough pain to last lifetimes.

I hope that in the future we can meet again as friends and put the past behind us, but for now, we have to say goodbye.

Don't look for us. We'll find you when the time is right.

I'm sorry, if it's not what you want but I'm going to ask him to turn me. Not now but in a couple of years. I know you never wanted this life for me, to be honest I never wanted it either. I can't leave him, Stefan. He will break and he will never recover and I will not cause him that pain.

I will always love you Stefan, but now I'll love you the right way.

Love always,

Elena.

P.S. Katherine deserves a second chance after what she's done for us. Don't ruin your chance at happiness because of a mistake she made whilst running for her life. She loves you, Stefan, and you make her a better person. I can't tell you that loving her will be easy, but I can promise that one day it will be worth it. When you find her, fight for her and you'll realise she's been fighting for you since the night she left.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: What did you think? Review please and let me know :D Also, if anyone's interested I could do a little related one shot from this detailing exactly how Damon and Elena gave in to their feelings for each other XD Let me know :D until next time...


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